ABSTRACT
On the eve of Sierra Leone's independence in 1961, the New York Times observed that the new country was “a haven of temperate, civilized thought” (Bigart 1960: 15). Westerners remarked that the prospect of state breakdown at some future date was unimaginable. Three decades later Sierra Leone was at the bottom of the United Nations Development Programme's index of Least Developed Countries and had descended into one of the world's most brutal and depraved conflicts (UNDP 2001). Other regions in Africa were experiencing similar troubles. Somalia, Sudan, Liberia, Rwanda and Congo among others all succumbed to civil war in the post-independence era. In recent years, the number of conflicts in Africa has declined; but it is also true that once-stable states have become susceptible to breakdown and violence. Even states that were once regarded as relative paragons of order and stability, such as the Côte d'Ivoire and Kenya, have not proven to be different from other conflict-ridden African states. Perhaps most worrying of all, some states—Burundi and Sudan for example—are constantly on the verge of conflict. For all of Africa's diversity, it is hard to make the case that any one state or group of states is invulnerable to state breakdown. Nor is it clear that the international community is capable of helping Africa avoid conflict in future.
